We’re having a heat wave with a reported high temperature yesterday of 34°(F) in Blue Hill and warmer weather today. It’s starting to melt the freshwater ice in driveways and the salty sea ice in the coves and bays.
Above, you’re looking (basically) north-northwest at the northern shore of Blue Hill Bay, from Blue Hill Harbor Dock. Fresh water from Mill Stream is cascading under Main Street’s Village Bridge, the granite-faced, 19th Century structure at the center of your view. (That’s Blue Hill, the near-mountain, on the right edge.)
Mill Stream enters onto the Bay’s sea ice and helps weaken the sea ice’s hold, but sometimes freezes on top of the Bay ice when arctic temperatures suddenly swirl down. (The salty sea water freezes at a lower temperature than freshwater.)
If you turn around on the Dock to look at the Bay as it opens toward the Atlantic Ocean, you’ll see that there’s a long way to go before the sea ice will be totally out of the Bay:
(Images taken in Blue Hill, Maine, on February 24, 2025.)